EASY ROBBERY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 282, 23 July 1932, Page 8

EASY ROBBERY

SYDNEY GANG CLEAR BANKS OF ALMOST EYERY COIN. TOWN BUSINESS HAMPERED. SYDNEY, June 30. The task of the gang which robbed the Cloncurry LrancheS of the Queensland National Bank and the Bank of New South Wales of £14,229 during the weelc-end was comparatively easy. They had the dpulicates of the eight keys necessary to open the strongroom of the Queensland National Bank, where they found the keys of the other bank — and all they had to do then was to walk up the road to the other building and take the money! It was probably the easiest big robbery ever committed in Australia, and | the racksmen displayed rare temerity 1 for they risked capture all the time. They took almost every coin from the two banks, and on Monday aeroplanes and cars had to be chartered to take £13,000 from other centres so that the business of the town could be resumed. Usually the managers of both the banks sleep on the premises, but they were not there on Saturday or Sunday night. They discovered the thefts when they commenced duty on Monday morning. From one bank £300 worth' of florins weighing 771b was taken, but no coins under ls were stolen from either bank. The bulk of the haul consisted of notes, but the police and banking officials will not disclose the denominations. When the police examined the premises there was not even a seratch on the strongroom door, and not a thing was out of place. The numbers of some of the notes stolen are known, but as the thieves had such a good start on the police the problem of capturing them is bound to be difficult. There has been a series of daring criminal coups in Northern Queensland in recent years. Early in 1927, £5000 in notes mysteriously disappeared from the registered mail van of the Tonwsville-Cloncurry train, . but in this and subsequent robberies, which yielded total proceeds of more than £14,000, the police have been baffled. Only one arrest, that of an accessory, was efiected, and the police then became aware of the existence of a man credited with being the master criminal of the robbery. The money was addressed by the Townsville branch of the Queensland National Bank to its branch at Cloncurry. At Cloncurry the seal of the bag was broken, and the money was missing. The accessory, a postal official, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Some of the notes were later passed at Townsville racecourse, and others at racecourses in Sydney. In 1928, a similar coup was effected on the Winton mail train. A box containing £5000 disappeared from the guard's van, and the empty box was found later near the railway line. Detectives stopped a motor car containing three men who were motoring to Townsville. The occupants were searched, but no trace of the money was found. Months later, gleanings from the underworld disclosed that the money had heen brought into Townsville in that car. A pneumatic tube had been cut, the money evenly distributed inside it, and the slit repaired. In 1930, £3000 in bonds and £100 in cash were stolen from the safe of the firm of Brownhill, Kirk and Co., of Townsville. Both principals of the firm exercised the greatest I care in safeguarding the keys, yet the safe was opened with duplicate keys. Almost a year later Sydney detectives arrested a man who was endeavouring to cash one of the bonds. The man was acquitted.